The Prince of Wales had to fight back tears during an emotional conversation about the impact of suicide with a widow.
Prince William was visibly moved during the deeply personal chat with Rhian Mannings, 48, who in 2012 lost the youngest of her three children, 1-year-old George, to a hidden illness, and then her husband, Paul Burke, to suicide five days later.
Sitting down for a cup of tea and homemade Welsh cakes at the Mannings’ home in Cardiff, the pair chatted about the stigma surrounding suicide for a short film marking World Mental Health Day.
The Prince asked Mannings what she would say to Paul if she could. She replied: “There’s only ever one thing I would ever say to him if I had time with him and that would be, ‘why didn’t you speak to me?’
“I ask myself that every single day. He’s missed out on so much joy and we would have been okay. I think that’s what the hardest thing is, we would have been okay.”
Briefly overwhelmed by emotion, the Prince paused and looked away. “I’m sorry, it’s just hard to ask the questions that I…” he said, fighting back tears, reaching out his hand across the table.
“No, it’s fine,” she said. “You’ve got children… it’s hard. And you’ve experienced loss yourself.”
The Prince took a deep breath before adding: “There’s a lot of unanswered questions that live with you forever, really, don’t they?”
Mannings said she would “forever go over those last few days” with her husband, wondering what she had missed.
“Before we lost George, we were just so happy,” she said. “And I think this just shows that it really can happen to anyone.”
She admitted she was surprised at the time by the stigma of suicide.
“Nobody would talk about it or actually say what happened,” she said. “And I found that really confusing at the time.”
Mannings said later that the Prince’s visible emotion showed how important it is to talk and not shy away from difficult topics.
“It was a really important moment because I think when it gets to the stage of a conversation when it gets emotional, a lot of people will shut down and stop,” she said.
“People are afraid of upsetting people and are afraid to have conversations that cause distress to other people. But actually, it is just so important… we continued to talk about it. It’s okay to find it difficult but that’s not a reason to shy away from it.”
The pair met in 2017 when Mannings interviewed the Prince, the patron of mental health charity Heads Together, for a BBC documentary.
She previously described the Prince as “lovely and very reassuring” after they spoke about the death of his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, and how she worried about her two elder children – Isaac, now 16, and Holly, 17.
The release of the film coincides with the launch of the Royal Foundation’s National Suicide Prevention Network.
It brings together more than 20 organisations under its umbrella, including Mannings’ 2Wish charity, to deliver “lasting change” in how suicide is understood and prevented across the UK.
James’ Place and the Jac Lewis Foundation have joined the network as founding partners, alongside the Hub of Hope, the UK’s largest mental health support directory.
The network will be chaired by Professor Ann John, a leading expert in the prevention of suicide and self-harm.
The Prince said: “The incredible partners who form this network reach those at risk of, or affected by, suicide with their inspirational work.
“I have had the privilege of meeting all of the founding partners to see first-hand their powerful community-based efforts to offer hope and support to those who need it most.
“Their efforts reaffirm the urgent mission of the National Suicide Prevention Network: to build a bold, unified national response to the heartbreaking – and preventable – tragedy of suicide.”
The Prince’s Royal Foundation, which has invested £1m ($2.3m) into the network, recently teamed up with the Jac Lewis Foundation and the Welsh Rugby Union to establish a new mental health hub inside Cardiff’s Principality Stadium.
The Jac Lewis Foundation was established in memory of Jac Lewis, from Ammanford, Wales, who died by suicide in 2019 aged 27.
Last April, the Prince opened a new centre for James’ Place in Newcastle, which helps men experiencing suicidal thoughts.
Suicide is the single leading cause of death for men under 50. One person takes their own life in the UK every 90 minutes.
It is a rare sight to see the Prince of Wales overwhelmed by emotion in public.
Members of the royal family are famed for stoicism, putting on a brave face when confronted with appalling tragedy and circumstance.
Occasionally, though, they are unable to hold it together, shedding tears – or trying desperately not to – as the sadness becomes too much.
In January, the King was visibly upset as he joined Auschwitz survivors for a ceremony to remember those murdered at the concentration camp.
As he laid a wreath at the “Death Wall”, he pressed his lips together to regain control and looked back twice as he walked away.
The King also appeared to blink back tears as he gazed towards his mother’s coffin during her funeral in September 2022. The Duke of Sussex, too, wiped away tears at the ceremony.
In 2019, Prince Harry had to pause to compose himself when addressing the annual WellChild Awards ceremony, later describing how he “choked up” and was “unable to get the words out”.
He has also been pictured getting emotional at various Invictus Games ceremonies, notably in The Hague in 2022.
Queen Camilla was seen with tears in her eyes at the ceremony in August to mark the 80th anniversary of VJ Day, when a 104-year-old veteran, Yavar Abbas, gave an address and said he wanted “to salute my brave King who is here with his beloved Queen in spite of the fact that he’s under treatment for cancer”.
The Queen was also reduced to tears when she met domestic abuse campaigner Diana Parkes, who recounted the harrowing story of her daughter Joanna Simpson’s death at the hands of her estranged husband.
The Duchess of Edinburgh, who confronts the horrific realities of sexual violence in conflict zones as part of her work, has often cried in public.
Last October, tears streamed down her face as she emerged from a makeshift clinic for women and children who had been raped in Chad.
And perhaps one of the most famous displays of emotion was from the most famously stoic royal family member of all: when the late Queen shed a tear during the decommissioning of the Royal Yacht Britannia in Portsmouth in 1997.
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